searching for lift off polymer for cleaning lenses

Beware of silicon products. They can be aromatic and condense on lens surfaces.

They are also difficult to clean completely.

And, silicone caulk is going to take awhile to dry. Opticlean is ready to peel is a few minutes.

BTW, I've tried to email Opticlean to ask a question but never got anything other than an autoreply. Has anyone had better success? Maybe someone's SPAM filters are overreacting to something? :)

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror:

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I would agree completely that you definitely DO NOT want to use silicone. Cured silicone is nearly impossible to completely remove from glass.

There is new product called First Contact that I saw at Photonics West made by Photonic Cleaning Technologies. They claim it works even better than Opticlean. Unfortunately it is no cheaper. They have a website for ordering at

but it has almost no information.

This web page:

describes a technique using U.S.P collodion (not flexible collodion) and cheese cloth. I can not vouch for it personally but I have heard from other sources it works well.

I think it's just Opticlean under a new name or maybe slightly new and improved. Or maybe, they are expanding by selling it through another Web site. No info but what's there sounds identical. Yes, I know, that's quite a definitive conclusion based on next to no information! :) Also note that it's not a real Web site - just a redirect to a Yahoo URL.

But here's the kicker: The email contact at Dantronix (opticlean) is:

snipped-for-privacy@dantronix.com.

The email contact for the new stuff is:

snipped-for-privacy@photoniccleaning.com.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror:

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Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.

This is information I remember reading about, but have no personal experience with:

Nitrocellulose solutions (commonly called "collodion", nitrocellulose dissolved in ethanol and ether) dry to a thin film that can be removed and lift off dust, etc from optics. It's primarily used for protective medical purposes (it's used in things varying from wart removers to surgical suture protection), but was used years and years ago to make replica gratings. You used to be able to get it from some local pharmacies. I read about this when I was looking for ways of cleaning diffraction gratings. Do a google on collodion and grating and you'll get a bunch of hits.

When I first read about Opticlean, I wondered if all it is is a slight variation on collodion (which is not very expensive, but isn't the easiest thing to buy either if I recall correctly... Medical supply houses would have it).

However, and this is a big "however," you may not want to use what is called "flexible collodion," because this has added oils to give the flexibility (camphor and castor oil) that will obviously require using traditional techniques to clean anyway. I actually have some of this, and have tested it on miscellaneous optics... seemed to work just fine but I'm still hesitant to use it on good optics. I even tested it on a bad grating one time, and although it seemed to work fine, again it's not something I would recommend without further testing.

Frank

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and

Try

They make a line of lens cleaners and coatings. I'm not sure if they sell direct.